Our Family

Thursday, November 27, 2008

I'm sure that most of you haven't noticed I've been lax in my posting, but I've been away for a while. No real reason, just trying to catch up. I keep telling myself that if I can get caught up then I can post things again. Well, catching up is not something that is happening anytime soon. But since I woke up this morning at 5:00 am and couldn't get back to sleep, here's an update post.

We are getting extremely excited about Christmas around here. Kendall and I are actually done shopping for all of the kids, and just have a couple of little things left to buy for other people. I am having a really hard time not giving the gifts to the kids now. In fact, a couple of nights ago we actually did let Mercedes play with one of her new toys and I've never seen her have so much fun! Her only quandary was the she didn't have enough hands to hold all of the blocks at the same time. So she would pick up two and then look at the others on the floor and back at her hands, like "what am I going to do?" I was having so much fun watching her! Here is a picture of the kids looking at the Toys R Us Big Book of Toys. We've gotten 2 of them and Avri carries hers around with her.We've actually been working with Avri because she says "I'm going to ask Santa for that" about pretty much everything. So I told her that if she asks for more than two things that Santa will think she is greedy. So she decided on a dollhouse and a wagon for her dollhouse. The second item keeps changing, but the dollhouse stays constant. (Hmm, I wonder what she will be getting...) Talmage still doesn't get the Santa thing, but he does get the present thing. His birthday is a week and a half away, so we already have all of his birthday stuff sitting out in a pile and he's excited about that. (I don't have any new good pics of him, but here he is falling asleep in his lunch.)Mercedes has gotten to be quite the little trouble maker. She scoots around now. When she's on her tummy she goes backwards and gets stuck in corners. When she is sitting up she bum scoots forward. But she hasn't figured out how to do it to intentionally get somewhere. Her other favorite past time is emptying the wipes. Here she is with a few of them, and Avri thought they would make a good hat for her. I'm obviously cleaning, hence the mess in the background.Avri and I continue to play with her hair. This one is her favorite because it looks like a flower. Not a perfect picture, but you get the idea!This is just my little sweety. I try not to have favorites, but on any given day I just might due to behavior on the older childrens' part. She has a small head for her age and this hat really shows it!! Although I think the hat was made for a child with a HUGE head.Mercedes LOVES her Daddy. She now says mamamama and dadadada and she seems to direct it to whichever parent she sees or wants. But you can tell that she plays favorites sometimes as well.

I have such a funny video to post, so I'll see if I can get it to work. If not, too bad for you. But it will have to come a little later since I'm leaving for Thanksgiving breakfast right now. I hope you all have (or had) a fantastic Thanksgiving!!

Thursday, November 13, 2008

At least, that's how we feel lately. However, I must say that we have found a FANTASTIC doctor named Dr. Steve (Lichtenstein) who is the pediatric ophthalmologist that we went to yesterday. We have finally solved the mystery that is Mercedes eye! So it IS a hemangioma that she has in her eye, it is just under the surface instead of on top, like the strawberry hemangiomas that are common on babies. The doctor was able to test her prescription in her eyes through lenses and shining lights in her eyes (which she HATED because they had to dilate her eyes again!). They said that hemangioma is causing a slight astigmatism in her right eye. it isn't a problem yet, but if it keeps getting bigger then it could cause her some problems with her eyesight. So we go in again in one month and they will check it again and see how it has changed. If it becomes a problem then they will treat it. But if it is not a problem then it will go away on its own in a few years. I'm torn on the issue, because I don't want to give her medications or steroids that she doesn't need, but I also don't want her to have a black eye for the first 4 years of her life.

I think that the thing I liked the most about this doctor is that if I think it's getting worse I can email him a picture and he will tell me if I should bring her back in or not. And if I take her in and everything is the same, or no need to worry I don't get charged. If it is something worth worrying about he will fix it. I'm so glad that we are in the right place finally!!

I related news, Kendall went to the doctor, and still no news on his throat or swallowing problems. He doesn't have the Zenker's Diverticulum that we thought, so they are going to try stretching his throat again in December and this doctor will do the esophogram so that he can get a good look at his throat. So at least we know what one of the problems is. :) Sorry about no pics. But that is our update.

Friday, November 7, 2008

I guess the last picture that I posted of the leaves in our back yard was premature. I took the kids out today to finish raking leaves and we had a pile worthy for Clifford the big red dog to jump in! I was slightly concerned that I might actually lose one of the kids in it. But we had a blast!

It is officially cold now. We went from 80 degree weather to like 40 degrees in one day, so we will be spending a lot more time indoors. A couple of days ago Avri was wanting some attention, so I decided to sit down with Avri and Talmage and make some Lego zoo animals. We spread them all out and had an entire zoo to play with. Avri thought it was great, and Talmage was really enjoying pulling them apart. It took a great deal of work on my part to get a picture of all of them put together. The animals from left to right are: my own renditions of a tiger, a lion, and giraffe, then there is an elephant, a sad excuse for an alligator, a zebra, and then a camel. Then we had to have a concession stand, complete with a cook and a customer and benches. Our version of a zoo made from one small box of Lego's.

Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Kendall has a job interview today. I know, he's only been with his current job for a few months, but he got an interview with Caterpillar and it would be a really fantastic opportunity, so we will see. The interview is from 9 until about 2:30 with 1 hour of a break for lunch! Pretty intense!! I think he's a little nervous, but I think he'll do great. We'll keep you posted.

As a side note, I LOVE early voting. Hooray for the chance to vote before the lines are hours long. But if you haven't voted, go do it! I think that in these days it is getting even more important to vote than ever before.

This wouldn't be a blog without a post about Halloween. So here it is. When Kendall got home we carved pumpkins. I know, a little late. But better late than never. The kids picked the designs, and Avri enjoyed helping, but Talmage didn't want to sit still to do something like carve pumpkins. Avri's is the witch. Talmage's is the smiley face.

And here is Kendall's pumpkin. However, it was carved a couple of weeks ago, so it is looking a bit sad and wilted.Then we ate dinner and got dressed up. Mom is not in the picture because the extent of her costume was an orange shirt and Halloween socks. No time by the time everyone else is dressed.Avri was SO EXCITED to be Snow White. She was bummed though that I wouldn't let her wear her Snow White shoes, which are the toy plastic heels.Talmage made a cute giraffe.And Macie got to be the turtle (you can't see the shell that is on the back.

Mercedes thought the candy was great! She was chewing on something almost the whole time, until she just got so tired that she fell asleep in the middle of trick-or-treating.We got home and dumped out our loot and I couldn't get the wrappers off the candy fast enough for Talmage, so I think he ate a couple of them with the wrappers still on. Then we took the silly string that they got outside and had a war.It was so funny to watch them! They didn't like it until I plastered Kendall with it and he was getting me, then they decided it was okay. Some got on Mercedes though and she freaked out. But I just laughed the whole time. It was pretty funny. We got them all sugared up and my parents came over and decided to take them home for a slumber party. Which was fine with us since they were now BOUNCING off the walls. So we sent them away and watched "The Ghost and Mr. Chicken." (Kendall is a HUGE Don Knotts fan, in case you didn't know!) That is my kind of scary movie!! Fun times.